Thursday, June 19, 2008

KBP, Mapp Biopharmaceutical Partnership a Key Link to the Plant Biotech Cluster in Owensboro


Continuing from the BIO Conference in San Diego..

On Wednesday night San Diego-based Mapp Biopharmaceuticals hosted a delegation from Kentucky BioProcessing, the Owensboro Medical Health System, the EDC, and Governor Steve Beshear at a dinner to discuss the partnership between Mapp and KBP. Mapp is one of the two small biotech companies that established operations in Owensboro in 2007.

Mapp utilizes the facility and the workforce at KBP as part of its focus on development of a commercial scale production platform for its products. Mapp has developed and is currently producing several different plant derived products for use in small volume trials.

The second company, Owensboro-based Intrucept Biomedicine is a product-focused enterprise whose mission is to discover and develop novel antiviral biotherapeutics. Intrucept has a license from the National Institutes of Health to a plant-derived, broad-spectrum antiviral protein that is one of the most potent antivirals known and can be readily produced using plant-based biomanufacturing at Kentucky Bioprocessing.

Remarkable progress has been made during the past two years in the Owensboro biotech industry thanks to the work of KBP and OMHS.

KBP, the University of Louisville’s James Graham Brown Cancer Center, and the Owensboro Medical Health System’s Mitchell Cancer Center are working together to perform cutting edge cancer research, work with start-up companies developing drugs, and provide full scale bioprocessing of pharmaceuticals and plant natural products. Their joint efforts have the potential for moving Owensboro into international prominence as a center of the plant made pharmaceutical and the natural product development and production industry.

Kentucky BioProcessing offers a unique pilot and full-scale bioprocessing facility with the physical, human and intellectual infrastructure in place to complete any processing without excessive experimentation. It offers small start-up companies huge savings in capital expenses. KBP has created a program that can work with multiple companies and start-ups in the life science industry.

KBP recently completed acquisition of the GENEWARE® intellectual property platform designed and created to enable the expression of genes and the proteins which they encode in plants.

The GENEWARE® system is widely recognized as one of the world’s most potent, robust and effective plant-based gene expression systems. Its acquisition complements KBP’s existing facilities, expertise and intellectual property portfolio. KBP can now operate as a single source provider for anyone interested in the expression, extraction and purification of a therapeutic protein or other high value product for commercial purposes.


Next: implementation steps for the future. Click here for more information on the Greater Owensboro Life Science Partnership.

No comments: